


Pulled By A String (at both ends)

by disamphigory



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ballet, M/M, Museums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2384768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disamphigory/pseuds/disamphigory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I am wild," Grantaire replied, and gracefully walked to the next painting.</p><p>for a friend, who requested: E/R, ballet, men with buns, kanye west, and art museums.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulled By A String (at both ends)

Grantaire cocked his head at the huge painting and dipped into a  _plie_. He looked again, stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth, and adjusted his back foot and lifted his right arm a little higher. He closed his eyes and tightened from his core and tried, as always since those early days as the only boy in  _Mme_. Guerin's class, to imagine he was being pulled by a string at both ends, bound to the floor but pulled up by the sky.

_click_

Grantaireopened his eyes and fell out of his  _plie_  and turned to glare at the source of the shutter-noise. " _Must_  you?" he said, wriggling out his arms. Never dip into something that deep unless you've stretched out ahead of time.

"You just looked so  _serious,_ " Courfreyac said, clicking the shutter again to capture Grantaire's crossed arms.

"I am wild," Grantaire replied, and gracefully walked to the next painting.

Courfreyac grinned down at his phone, narrowing his eyes as he typed: "ur bf is a dork. :)" and sent the two images away into the cloud, tucking the phone into his pocket and sauntering after Grantaire.

He checked his phone for multiple texts in a row somewhere around the Greek statues. "Grantaire, while a good friend, is not my boyfriend. Who was that artist he was copying? 1/2" "Are there prints at the store? If so I will re-imburse you later should you purchase one for him. 2/2" Courfreyac shook his head.  _Idiots_.

They caught up with Combeferre in the revolving photography exhibit, nose two inches from the descriptive plaque on the wall. "You know the photographer didn't even develop all of his rolls? They just found them in heaps, buckets of film with some of the best photography of the '68 protests ever seen!" Combeferre informed them as they each took an arm to lead him gently out of the exhibit. Well, Grantaire took an arm, and Courfreyac reached down to hold Combeferre's hand.

"Why did he never get around to developing them?" Grantaire asked as they stepped out of the museum into the large courtyard, the tip of a glass pyramid in the distance.

"Oh, something silly. Love? Something about another protestor? He didn't want to look at the pictures..." Combeferre faded off for a second. Grantaire and Courfreyac's eyes met over his head and raised their eyebrows.

"But the  _lines,_ Courfeyrac! The  _light quality_!"

Courfreyac squeezed his hand. "They were something?"

"Well,  _yes_ , artistically, I suppose so." Combeferre disentangled his arm from Grantaire to shove his glasses back up his nose. "But  _mathematically_ so as well. I wish museums would pay attention to the  _details_  sometimes--"

Grantaire slowed until he was a few steps behind the couple and smiled as they glowed golden in the fading sunlight of the afternoon. Everything slowed and  _brightened_  and he sketched out in his mind the purples of the shadows of the museum walls, the tan specks in slabs of stone of the courtyard, the october-blue in the sky, how the light made halos around anyone with blond hair, lighting them up past capacity for any sort of holiness but that was all Grantaire saw.

"You coming?" He shook himself out of his fugue and the colors went back to their usual background noise and grinned. Glancing around to make sure there was room, he took off in a series of complicated  _chasses_  until catching up with his friends to leap four feet in the air in a leaping spin and land it as they stumbled to a halt.

"I still don't understand  _how_  you do that, R" Combeferre fussed. "The physics alone don't make sense."

Grantaire relaxed and fell in, walking next to Courfreyac, who was attempting to walk and text, it seemed. "It's not physics. I just,  _want_  to hang in the air and then I do."

"Speaking of wanting, R," Courfreyac said, looking up from his phone. "Your boyfriend says hi."

" _Not_  my boyfriend," Grantaire said as Combeferre and Courfreyac mouthed the sentence along with him. "What's he up to?"

"See for yourself, Enjolras?"

Fuck. They were Facetiming. 

"Ca va?" Grantaire took the phone from Courfreyac and lifted it to his face, adjusting a bit so the sunset was  _on_  his face rather than behind him. If this meant he was walking backwards to stay with his friends, well, it was a good thing he was mostly graceful.

"Pas mal. You?"

"Ok."

"I see that you have been making 3d sculptures of yourself again?" Enjolras asked. Well, the side of Enjolras' face asked, and a few golden curls. Grantaire wasn't about to ask him to adjust the camera.

"Making 3d--oh. Courfeyrac sent you the pictures, then?"

"It was a fair likeness. You were underdressed for the imitation, however. You should have perhaps brought props." The side of Enjolras' mouth quirked up.

"The tutu was a one-time--"

Enjolras raised his eyebrow.

"--three-time thing, and not in the middle of the Musee de--"

"Well, of course. Social protest art usually lacks for an adequate audience in the middle of a museum stuffed to the gills with the bourgeoisie." Enjolras put him out of his misery.

" _Mon ange_ , we  _are_  the bourgeoisie," he riposted gently.

"To a certain point of bourgeoisie that is generally inter-sectional and  _listening_ , although I do not my any means wish to discourage any  _other_  members of the bourgeoisie from joining our movement, but--"

"--I get it! We've heard it. We made Eponine write it, remember?"

"I really need to remind her to put up the new officers roster to the blog---" Enjolras hung up mid-sentence.

Grantaire did not take offense to this, as Enjolras often forgot about capacities of iOS products for multi-tasking. He was still missing his Android, which he liked greatly for the philosophical underpinnings of open-source software, but had acceded to the needs of the group for quick international Imessage and exchanged for an Iphone instead.

Grantaire turned and began walking again with Combeferre and Courfreyac. "So, shall we stop and pick up some wine before heading to the Cafe Musain?" he asked cheerfully. Enjolras always made him cheerful, except for when he made him suicidal. Art was like that. Rather, Enjolras was like that. Some days, baguettes were like that. Eponine was always like that but it was a cultivated  _thing_  she had going. There was an explanation on her blog.

His friends were difficult, but ultimately worth it, most days.

"You can't order wine when we get there?" Courfreyac asked.

"Their house red is a offense to grapes," Grantaire replied. "We'll stop." He bounced on his toes and began to think about doing another jump just to settle his bones, but a hunk of hair fell into his face and he dropped down again. He took his hair down and shook out his loose black curls, sticking his elastic in his mouth. He walked and scraped his hair together again, left hand holding the bun and right hand running over his head to ferret out any bumps, when he felt his pocket vibrate and then blast a familiar hook.

He scrambled to finish his bun and clicked "answer" mid-way through the " _God to a non-believer_ \--"

"You hung up," he answered.

"I hung up. Sorry. 7pm? The ABC?"

"Picking up wine. You want me to grab a juice?" It was a Thursday. Enjolras did not drink on weekdays. 

There was a longer hesitation on the end of the line. "No, count me in on the wine. We've got a very long meeting. General Lamarque, you know, was put into hospice care, and we need to work on plans for--"

"Got it. Lamarque, on his way out. You, me, needing wine. Long meeting. I'm set. Gotta go love you bye." He pressed the red-bar at the bottom of the screen and then paused, nearly tripping.

 _Love you_? Had he just said that? Out loud?

"What type did he want?" Combeferre asked from where he had draped himself into Courfreyac. Grantaire was never sure how they managed to walk like that.

"Red,"  _the color of desire,_ he thought, threw away his trepidation at uttering those irrevocable three words, and readied himself to take another leap. Maybe tonight they'd have some wine and finally say what was going on, between them.


End file.
